Mother Dearest

Happy 70th B-Day Momma!

I woke at 5:25am somewhat abruptly. It’s rare that I sleep straight thru the night without waking even once, but it finally happened. I am so used to waking two or three times in the final two hours of sleep that I felt a little cheated when I saw that it was time to rise. I expected it to be 3 or 4am. The benefit of sleeping so soundly was feeling so well rested.

I began my exercises completing a full workout by 5:45am. My left wrist had a strange twinge of pain felt during push-ups. That happens on occasion. Ykraps and I headed out the door on another mild morning, but not nearly as warm as the afternoon before. Coffee hit the spot after returning from my run. I was surprised to read that the Atlanta Falcons head coach resigned and then accepted the head coaching job with Arkansas. That’ll turn some heads! I guess the Michael Vick debacle pushed him over the edge. Can’t say I blame him.

I took Mindy her coffee sometime just after 6am. I headed back downstairs for more coffee and meditation. I realized this morning that I am beginning to eat up the extra time I created by being up before 5:30am. In fact, as I write, I’ve decided to set 6:05am as my drop dead time for finishing coffee & PC. That’ll give me a solid 15 minutes of meditation time. Fifteen minutes well worth spending.

I dressed for my run wearing only a single upper layer. I was plenty comfy. I noticed that my new ear buds sounded a bit tinny, so I took a little time to adjust the built in equalizer of my MP3 player. My run went well, although the music still sounded tinny. I’ll have to tinker more later. Mindy had my breakfast completely ready at my usual place setting. Slowly but surely she’s becoming trained! :) She & Bella headed out at 7:25am. She reminded me of their late night tonight and that no one would be home until Jim brought the kids around 7:30pm. She had a teacher’s union meeting to attend. They’re close to striking. Yikes!!!

After they departed I pulled Jacob’s new spelling list from the letter stand and began quizzing him. He’s pretty sharp and spelled all ten words with relative ease. It’s truly amazing to witness his learning over the last one year and four months. They’re teaching them so much more at this level than they did in my day. I’m pretty sure the focus was on finding the proper place in line and playing well with others when I was in first grade. We certainly weren’t reading, writing, and doing math.

I headed up to the shower just after 7:30am. We walked to the bus stop at 7:55am like always. Pat and I talked only briefly before heading back to our homes. I had a few things still to complete before I could dash off to work.

Work went well. We had our usual Wednesday staff meeting, which went pretty well. It helped speed the day along. I had no pressing errands to run, but contemplated going after a haircut. I didn’t. Instead, I worked straight through leaving for home around 5:10pm. I noticed traffic at a complete stand still on I-270 from the parking lot. I noted the aberration and took the back way home.

I was home right at 5:30pm. I prepped tomorrow’s coffee even before walking Ykraps. I returned from our walk by 5:50pm. I spent the next 45 minutes wrapping Xmas gifts all the while snacking on nuts, cheese, and summer sausage. My next priority was catching up on my blog. I hadn’t updated my webpage for five days, although I had 2.5 days of that already written. I caught up through Sunday before the kids arrived home.

The kids were home at 7:33pm. Jacob wasn’t in the house five minutes before he asked to play hockey. I negotiated pajamas first. Both kids headed up and took care of the necessary business first. They probably needed a bath but I didn’t give them one. However, I did wash their faces and made sure that they brushed their teeth. Bella tinkered in her room while Jacob and I headed for the basement. Before we could begin I listened to a couple saved phone messages. I also repaired my “hockey stick” – a plastic lacrosse wicket.

Agreeing to play only one, we ended up playing three games. Jacob is not a pleasant loser. He tossed his wicket at me after game three. It was 8:15pm. I allowed the kids to sit with me in the family room and wait for their momma to get home. Jacob was insistent in watching the Blue Jackets game. I caved. I was content listening to seasonal music.

Mindy arrived home just after 8:30pm just as I was dialing up her cell phone. The kids were only moderately excited that she was home – a sign that they’re getting used to me, I guess.

Mindy wasted little time sending the kids off to bed. While she tucked them in, I fell asleep in the big chair. I woke & popped popcorn at 9:05pm. The kids were still awake and came down for five additional minutes of family time and popcorn. After Mindy retucked them into bed I tuned to the Comedy channel to watch Southpark. Mindy eventually headed to bed. I watched the end of the current episode but then headed to bed myself. I DVR’d the other two episodes. It was 10pm on the nose.